


Caught!

by Elbie



Category: Gloomverse (Webcomic)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Drowning, Gen, Pirates, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29704125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elbie/pseuds/Elbie
Summary: A fun little fic I  wrote about an oc! Her name is Electra and she's about to have a very bad day because of pirates.Set in the world of Gloomverse by the Crayon Queen.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	1. The descent

The clouds were being lit from the underside as the sun neared the horizon, making the sea almost luminous at their future meeting point. On the side, the Storm was looming threateningly, as was usual. Thunderous roars and howling winds were registered as nothing but dull background noises by the four Stratoversians flying by. Their patrol had gone without a hitch, and they were quietly making their way back to the Kingdom of the Sun. The imposing golden column arising from the permanimbus could already be seen glittering in the sunset’s rays. The fly back home was typically silent, as every member showed signs of tiredness, but none wanted to show weakness. One of them was Electra, stubborn and proud, a model stratoversian. 

She ambitioned for a position of power, believing she was worthy of it despite her struggles. She would do what is right for Stratoverse. Unlike the current Prince and Princess, she would stay, she would lead, she would be a great ruler. Those were only faraway dreams, the position of Princess was currently unavailable to her, a simple Nimbo-Baroness. She was still one of the better ranked of the group: Cap was also a Nimbo-Baron, but Dawn and Cumulus were lower, and technically under their order. Technically only, because they were also her friends and a true leader knows when and how to exact their authority. A casual patrol like this one didn’t require much. Still, she had to make sure they were following the rules and instructions. Dawn often took too many initiatives and risks for her taste, and she had to call her to order on the regular. Cumulus was more on the laid-back side, but that made him forgetful and negligent. Electra always made sure to check on these two before starting the patrol. Cap was a great help. Like her, he was set on reaching the top, ready to do anything to be noticed. Sadly he often picked fights he had no chances of winning, and it was truly a miracle of friendship that they always managed to get him out of those alive. 

“Hey look! Azimuth 130!” 

Cap suddenly shouted, interrupting her train of thought and startling Cumulus.They all turned toward the direction he gave and…. here it was. The shadow cast by the Storm had hidden it from their view, but now that Cap had signaled it, it was unmistakably a boat. It was sailing slowly but surely toward them, already too close for comfort. 

“That ain’t a steamversian boat” remarked Cumulus. 

"No ..."

“Everyone, stay close, we’re going to take cover and-” Electra stopped in the middle of enunciating her emergency plan.

Dawn was missing. Cap and Cumulus both looked terrified, and soon so did she. That reckless girl was flying in their direction. 

Gears quickly turned inside her head and she issued her orders:

“Cap, I need you and Cumulus to stay here and create  _ cloud _ screen for us to hide behind.”

And without waiting for a reply, she pursued Dawn, flying as fast as she could. 

Thankfully, she caught up to her in a minute and redirected a cloud to hide them from view. Unfortunately, the ship was now in their reach. 

“Oh! Baroness Electra!” She did a salute, as if everything was fine. “I was about to do a reconnaissance flight above the ship. We need to gather enough information to signal them to–”

….

“Is everything alright Electra?” 

She was panting from her sprint and her nerves were acting up: she couldn’t keep a straight face. She was worried for Dawn. She was worried for Cumulus, for Cap, for herself. She was afraid. Fear is something she is well acquainted with. It is usually easily tamable and controllable, little routines that assured her that she had everything under control, contingency plans formulated in advance to know what to do… But throw a wrench into those and suddenly she was a mess. Nobody needed to see that, to see her like that, weak and frail and vulnerable. 

Breath in, breath out. 

“We need to go, Dawn. Now.” Steady voice, focused eyes. She was in control.

“Uh? But why? It’s probably just a lost ship, we cou–”

“That is an order.” She took her wrist and prepared to head back to the rest of the group. She couldn’t see them anymore, which was good. They followed her instructions, they were safe. Soon Dawn and her will be too. Everything was under control, and they would all laugh it off after.

A harpoon pierced the cloud they were hiding behind, passing right next to them. 

“PIRATES!” Yelled Dawn. She seemed surprised, did the possibility not cross her mind? Electra on the other hand, had her worst fear confirmed. She could feel her heartbeat accelerating, feel it resonating stronger and stronger through her whole body. She let go of Dawn’s arm, not wanting her trembling hand to reveal her panic. Evidently she had failed to hide them from view. 

Before they could even hear the harpoon crashing into the ocean, a second one appeared, piercing the cloud and Electra’s leg. She shrieked in pain while the momentum and weight of the harpoon brought her down. Through her tears, she saw a third one barely missing a horrified Dawn and the blood dripping from her leg following her in her fall. She needed to get out of here! Dawn needed her! This can’t be the end. But the  _ pain _ was too much to think clearly. She was falling, but stopping her fall while a harpoon was still firmly lodged into her leg would just make her injury worse, perhaps even  _ rip off the rest of her leg _ . Not doing anything may not be better, but at least it wouldn’t be her fault… Her indecisiveness was soon interrupted as her body slammed against the surface of the sea before the cold water engulfed her body. The shock ejected her headband who proceeded to sink into the sea and the remaining clouds covering her hair disappeared, revealing short platinum blonde hair. Unfortunately for her, the blow also worsened her open wound, letting even more blood out while salt water stung at her raw flesh like millions of needles. Electra wanted to scream, but her agony remained silent as air emptied her lungs. Even the adrenaline couldn’t numb the pain she was feeling, and she could barely stop the cold shock response from overriding her functions. She tried to swim upward despite the harpoon, but to no avail. She had to get it out before she could… 

Her heart sank even faster than the harpoon had sunk her. It had  _ deployed _ after impact. She had no hope of getting it out of her leg on her own, much less while underwater and out of breath. At least not if she wanted to keep her leg. The cold started numbing her senses completely, the pain in her leg becoming almost indistinguishable from the rest. 

_ It’s over, isn’t it? She’s gone.  _

Her slipping consciousness was suddenly awoken by a tearing sensation, pain like she had never felt before – and she had received multiple lightning bolts, one to her face. She coughed out the last bubbles of air that she had retained and inadvertently inhaled some water through her nose.  _ The Harpoon. _ It was being  _ tugged _ . She was being  _ dragged _ out like a fish, like a prey. She wanted to resist! To hold onto something! She couldn’t let herself be  _ captured _ . But there was nothing to do, nothing to hold onto. This was, and the realisation hurt almost as much as the harpoon, her only way to survive this. 

But… was she really going to submit? To let it happen? She had been taught to never go down without a fight. She resolved to give it her all as soon as… air… she  _ needed _ air. There was a fire in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, not right now, not…. 

All the resolve in the world can’t fight off reflexes, and she breathes in. It’s heavy, it’s salty, and it  _ burns _ even more. It’s clogging everything, she tries to cough it out but it’s impossible. It just makes it worse. Without realizing it, her mind shut down from all the pain and the drowning. 

  
  
  



	2. Hoisting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pirates are trying to hoist her up~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little note: Electra is an unreliable narrator, and very biased.

Two harpoons were hoisted on board with little to no trouble and were soon reloaded into their respective cannon. The third one was satisfyingly heavy to pull as it had hit its mark. Still, a sense of hurry distilled between the crew: all that effort was for nothing if their target drowned. 

Barely conscious, Electra didn’t register knocking against the hull of the ship. She was hanging upside down like a ragdoll, gravity aggravating her open wound as she was being pulled aboard. She hardly felt pain in her leg anymore despite the metal digging into her flesh, or at least she had grown numb to it. Her head finally surfaced and she began coughing and heaving out all the water she had inhaled, only for the waves knocking onto the boat to come crashing into her open mouth. The salt water burned her nose, her eyes, her throat, her whole inside. But the heaviness was finally gone. When she was pulled out of the reach of the waves, she could breathe again. Despite all the pain, all the burning, it felt miraculous. She was BREATHING. In that moment, that was the only thing that mattered. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

Her faculties were slowly coming back to her. She blinked a few times, squinted, but everything was blurry. She was crying. A gust of wind suddenly swept her sideway and her puny body smacked onto the wood of the hull. Right, a ship… she had… she had been caught. But maybe, maybe she could still… get away. It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be too late… She had to escape. 

Pirates were a looming threat to stratoversians. The crews were often made up of renegade, discarded stratoversians, if you could still call them that. They had been rejected by the Goddess Amaryllis, and so were no longer regarded as citizens. While the majority stayed on land and tried to help their homeland in any trivial way they could, some were rotten by jealousy and envy. This vile lot had always caused problems, but these days their numbers were… concerning. Being unwilling to work honestly and devote themselves to their country, they turned to the facility of piracy. They plundered the merchant ships between Stratoverse and Steamverse, raided the islands, harbour and coastal towns, and often took patrols as their target. As if this wasn’t enough, they stooped to a new low by accepting ecoversians and  _ inversians _ into their ranks. They were a disgrace, a menace that needed to be eradicated. 

But nothing significant had been done. 

A few coordinated attacks had taken down some ships, but there were always more. The Strato-Dukes and Duchess were already overwhelmed by their diverses responsibilities, and she couldn’t really blame them. The true cause of this decadence were the Prince and Princess.  _ They _ were to blame for this. Their leniency and unreliability had weakened the Kingdom, and allowed for dozens of invaluable citizens to go missing at the hands of those pirates. They were weak and cowardly, the Princess had run out on them and left her royal duties for others to fulfill, while the Prince refused to take the place of the King, blocking the hierarchy and weakening the country. Rumours spread that the Prince planned on waiting for the King’s death to take the throne, which was just. Preposterous! It could take  _ years _ before he does, and the kingdom would be left with a frail old King at its head. She wasn’t the only one dissatisfied with the ways of the new royalty, but none had the power to speak out against it. 

Rage can be an excellent stimulant, and this bitter resentment lit a fire of resolve in her. She was going to survive! She was going to climb up all the ranks! She was going to do  _ something  _ against those pirates! She would be a better leader, she would stand by her subjects, she would protect them. Nothing like this will ever happen if she can prevent it. Fuelled by anger, she dug her fingers through a slit in the wood, trying to slow down her ascent. She merely resisted a few seconds before letting go, the pain in her leg heightening as she was pulled into opposite directions. She scratched the wood again and again, destroying her polished black fingernails, reapping splinters in her hand, refusing to acknowledge the futility of her actions until her fingers were bleeding. She could hear them. She was about to be hoisted on board. No no no no no no no no no.

The familiar crackling noise of thunder put a stop to her panic. Dawn! It had to be her. A figment of hope crept into her mind. She was saved! They were saving her! Her relief was short-lived as she began falling towards the ocean,  _ again _ . The commotion created by the lightning bolt had disrupted the people in charge of pulling her up. Electra braced herself, expecting to hit the ocean like she had the first time. Instead, her fall was put to a brutal stop as she screamed in agony. The harpoon had widened her injury when taking the shock of the fall. Her voice was rasp, like nails on a blackboard. She spent a few seconds dangling above the sea to recover, or at least to pull herself together again. She had an ally, a distraction, a golden opportunity to escape! She just needed to get rid of that blasted harpoon and she would be free. 

Above her, the crew was taking aim. That second stratoversian will either join the first one or leave them alone for good. Shots were fired and thankfully both harpoons missed her. Dawn took this as a sign. While they were busy reloading their cannons, she could wreak havoc on their ship, maybe set fire to their sails, and above all, rescue Electra. She owed that much to her. It was  _ her fault _ she got caught. She wasn’t as powerful or as tactical but she could hold her own. What were a bunch of land bound pirates going to do about it?? 

A bullet answered her question, grazing her leg. 

They had guns. 

A second shot was fired, a third and a fourth. It seems she was wrong in assuming they only used the harpoons. She tried to fly unpredictably to dodge the numerous bullets, but that made it impossible to counterattack. She stopped for a brief moment, hoping to land a blow, and that was enough for a pellet to hit her in the shoulder. Dawn faltered, gritting her teeth. She could still– the harpoons were already being reloaded. She couldn’t just. Leave her friend! 

Another bullet barely missed her face. 

She couldn’t do this alone. She needed help if she wanted to save Electra without sharing her fate. Begrudgingly, she gave up, flying off and out of reach of the guns, avoiding the harpoons through sheer luck. 

In the meantime, Electra was trying to free herself from the harpoon as she was being hoisted aboard. The ascension was slower now that their attention was more divided, and she had time to think and recuperate ever so slightly. Despite her… unusual position, she tried floating and succeeded. It was truly a statement of stratoversian ingenuity: any other magician would have lost their wand by now. She reached for her leg and constated with horror what had happened: it was a real massacre, a bloody mess that kept getting larger and larger. The head of the harpoon was a metallic arrow, firmly lodged into her flesh thanks to two deployed barbs. The ocean had washed away the blood that should have been on them, but the sight made her sick. She heard gunshots above her.  _ Dawn! _ She had to free herself. 

Grabbing the arrow, she pulled the harpoon further in, gritting her teeth and retaining her screams of pain. Stratoverse was a land of fishers, and as such most people knew their way around fishing materials. She  _ knew _ the chance of ever getting that harpoon out were thin, but she still had to  _ try _ . Once she could fold the floppers, she would be able to get everything out. But that was easier said than done: the theory didn’t account for the excruciating pain the practice caused. 

Despite this plan, Electra overlooked an important detail: by floating, she made herself easier to lift. Before she could move it much more, she felt  _ hands _ . Cold and warms, dry and wet, gloves or not, many were reaching for her. She tried to fend them off, even shooting a lightning bolt in their direction, but the kickback sent her crashing onto the hull. The shock left her defenceless. Unceremoniously, the hands grabbed onto her limbs, clothes, cape, and in a collective effort, they flung her on board. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to look up harpoons to write this and :O


	3. Laughing Stock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Electra tries and fails to escape

What a sight. 

A frail woman is slumped on the deck, a harpoon piercing her leg. Her once immaculate white and blue clothes are all torn and wet, bloodied even. You can see blood on her formerly delicate hands, coming from the fingernails that she broke while trying to claw her way out. The nail polish did not hold. Usually, not even a single strand of hair would be out of place, but the disheveled mess that was on her head could hardly be called hair. It was akin to a wet mop dripping down her face, some parts stuck together by the salt. She was small.... The size of a child. But her body and face were undoubtedly those of a grown woman, though it was distorted by her pain and anger. 

She sees them approaching. Encircling her. 

No. 

No no no no no no.

_ She has to escape. Now. Or it will be too late.  _

She flies upward, the only issue left, as fast as she can.  _ She can make it — _ someone tug the rope of the harpoon and she is halted in her flight, before coming crashing down on the deck once more. 

_ Did she seriously forget….? _

Smirks and smiles fill their faces. Snickering sounds.

They’re all  _ laughing _ . 

Laughing at her, at her misery. 

_ Despicable Rotten Wretched Rejects _ . The Sun was too merciful on their kind. They do not deserve pity, they do not deserve compassion, they are not humans anymore, just empty shells rotten by envy. They were jealous of her blessing. A truly merciful act would be to put them all down. The Kingdom of the Sun do not need them. They have no value. Killing them would not even count as murder, but as a  _ service _ . 

The tears in her eyes makes it hard to see, but it doesn’t matter. She can see their shadows closing in on her. Arms reaching out. 

She might be grounded, but flight isn’t the only trick up her sleeve. When one hand gets too close, she shoots it. Electricity crackles, sparks fly, a scream resonates but most importantly, the shadows back off. She smiles. 

“StEp bACk!!” Her voice is croaky and rasp from the sea water. 

“If you even tHInK of getting cLOser….”

She looks around frantically, pointing with her right arm. Maybe she could fight her way out…? 

“I wOn’t!! I woN’T hesiTATE!!”

She’s panting. Her near drowning took a toll on her, and even adrenaline can’t compensate for everything. 

Perhaps this is why she did not react fast enough. 

One of the pirates caught her from behind before she could attack them. They lift her up from the ground, locking her in their arms. Their grip is strong and her arm is stuck: She tries to use her magic and defend herself, but she can barely do anything when grasped like that. The tips of her fingers crepitate, but nothing comes out. 

_ She should have set fire to their ship when she had the chance!  _

Others are coming to their aid. Electra struggles as best as she can, trying to headbutt and bite anyone that comes in range, but her wounds and weariness makes it harder, ineffective. She tries to kick one of them and she immediately winces from the pain, despite it being her “good” leg. They take advantage of this moment of weakness and soon she is tightly held by the arms from behind. A rope scratched roughly against her skin: they were tying up her arms. No matter how much opposition she put up, the numbers were against her and the pirates got their way. Soon she was tied everywhere except for her legs, they were avoiding touching the harpoon. She scoffed at that.  _ If they think that this insignificant injury will incapacitate her— _ She tries to get up, only to immediately fall down, letting out a yelp of pain. 

Laughter. Again. 

_ “She never learns, this one _

_ They never do, too proud to admit defeat _

_ I know the type _

_ Stubborn _

_ How long before she cracks _

_ They never change _

_ Rather die than admit they’re wrong _

_ Stupid _

_ Think they’re so much better _

_ Can’t handle it _

_ Look at her _

_ Stuck up _

_ It won’t last” _

She grits her teeth, blocking out the rumours. Monsters. All of them. They deserve a fate worse than death. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, can you tell I'm having fun writing this? It's very freeing I can just do whatever I want.


End file.
